Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, the
podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and
movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren,
and I’ve had a hard time getting started on this one.

Sometimes I procrastinate an
episode because I don’t want to get into an idea or movement that
is potentially stupidfaced. Other times, I’m nervous about doing a
great work a disservice in doing a stupidfaced episode. This is one
of those times.

Patricia Roberts-Miller was one
of my mentors at the University of Texas, and I always knew that
she was doing work on demagoguery. She’s one of those wonderful
rare people who let you in on the secrets of their research
revision and editing process, letting you behind the curtain of
producing academic work. But until I read Demagoguery and
Democracy, I had no idea how important that work could be. I am not
exaggerating when I say this is the most important book I’ve read
this year.

First off, let me give you the
caveat that the small, portable, ultimately very readable
Demagogury and Democracy is not, strictly speaking, the academic
version of her research. That’s forthcoming. But Demagoguery and
Democracy is compact and makes a handy gift for friends and
relatives this holiday season. Perhaps you can think of someone who
needs it.

The fact is we all need it.
Roberts-Miller argues that when we think of demagoguery, we usually
think of demagogues-- silver tongued seducers who memorize their
audience into doing stupid things they would normally never do.
These lying liars know what they’re saying is false, but they know
it will manipulate the sheeple follow them. But that’s not the
direction it goes. “We don’t have demagoguery in our culture
because a demagogue came to power,” she argues, “when demagoguery
becomes the normal way of participating in public discourse, then
it’s just a question of time until a demagogue arises” (2). So if
we should be focusing less on individual demagogues and more on the
practice of engaging in demagoguery, if it’s something you and I
could be doing, how do we know if we’re doing it?

“Demagoguery,” Roberts-Miller
says “is about identity. It says that complicated policy issues can
be reduced to a binary of us (good) versus them (bad). It says that
good people recognize there is a bad situation, and bad people
don’t; therefore, to determine what policy agenda is the
best, it says we should think entirely in terms of who is
like us and who isn’t” (8). In other words “demagoguery says that
onlyweshould be included in deliberation
becausetheyare the problem” (20 emphasis in
original).

I shouldn’t have to say that if
you’ve been following American politics for the past, oh,
especially year and a half, all of this is going to sound familiar,
but again, remember that demagoguery isn’t about one powerful
individual--it’s about a range of discourses that gives power to an
individual. When compromise is out of the picture and persuasion is
about being the right kind of person rather than having a good
idea, democracy withers.

Roberts-Miller gives the example
of Earl Warren as someone who go burned by participating the
demagoguery. Warren, if the name doesn’t ring a bell, was the
WWII-era attorney general for the state of California, and he
advocated strongly for Japanese internment. He made spurious
claims, like that people of Japanese descent were living
disproportionately close to areas like factories, ports, railroads,
highways etc. without considering that PEOPLE live
disproportionately close to factories, port, railroads, etc.
because that’s part of living in civilization. Years later, in his
1977 memoirs, Warren himself said he deeply regretted his role in
advocating in Japanese-American internment. Warren wasn’t an evil
mustache-twirler, even though he participated in some pretty wicked
demagoguery. Later, Warren was the supreme court justice who, among
other things, managed to bring about the pivotal Brown vs. Board
ruling, hastening racial desegregation. So if this generally good
dude could engaged in bad demagoguery, we’re all at risk of falling
into it. I like to think that he might have had fewer regrets iif
one of Warren’s friends had been all, “Hey Earl, seems like you’re
getting carried away. Let’s take a couple steps back and talk about
your reasoning.”

And that, Roberts-Miller
suggests, is one of the keys to fighting demagoguery whereever we
find it--with others or with our friends or even ourselves. She
gives us some key todos:

Consume less of it yourself. That means not
clicking on links that say “Look at this stupid thing the other
side did--aren’t they idiots?” It’s hard to restrain yourself
because, as demagoguery, it will make you feel good for not being
one of those idiots. But it’s not what you or democracy
need

Don’t
engage in purely “us vs. them” arguments who are just repeating
talking points someone told them to think. Instead, consider
sharing counter-examples or stories, which can lead them to think
for themselves. Instead of arguing abstractly with, for example,
someone who thinks immigrants are lazy, tell them how proud you are
of your sister-in-law for learning three languages and graduating
college and becoming a high school math teacher. Even better,
invite them to meet her and get to know her personally. It’s hard
to think of someone as “them” when you’re meeting him or her
individually.

If
appropriate, go ahead and engage those arguments, but be prepared
to point out inconsistencies in reasoning. This is where
Roberts-Miller encourages all of us to review our logical fallacies
and learn to reason abstractly in order to look for internal
inconsistencies. Again, think of Earl Warren’s imaginary friend
saying, “Say, Earl, don’t you think those folks are living next to
highways and railroads because they need to commute to work, not
because they want to sabotage them?” You can’t just go around
saying “that’s a fallacy” because that will make people want to
punch you, so you might as well also ask, or discover, the key
question “what are the circumstances under which [you] would change
[your] mind?”

Finally, and most importantly, support and
argue for democratic deliberation. Encourage inclusion, fairness,
self-skepticism and the other values of democratic deliberation. As
Roberts-Miller puts it “Democracy is about having to listen, and
compromise, and it’s about being wrong (and admitting it)”
(129).

I’ve given you the quick summary
and takeaways of this book, but I really do recommend checking it
out yourself, and recommending it to others who are concerned about
the increasingly bifurcated social and political world we inhabit.
I don’t know about you, but I hate always having to wonder if I’m
the “right kind of person.” It’s much more freeing to think, “Am I
having the right kind of conversations?”

If you have a favorite strategy
for more productive deliberation, why not send us an email
atmererhetoricpodcast@gmail.com?
I’m thinking we’re probably going to be talking a lot more about
this sort of thing in the future, so probably an episode on
listening rhetorics? Maybe something on protest rhetoric? What
would you like?

About the Podcast

A podcast for beginners and insiders about the people, ideas and movements that have defined the history of rhetoric.